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Dima Zaichenko
Dima Zaichenko

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Telegram AI Companion: A Fun Rust + Local AI + Telegram Project

#rust #telegram #ai #docker

Hey dev.to! 👋

Recently I built a small but fun pet project — Telegram AI Companion.

It's a Telegram bot that chats with you using a local LLM via LocalAI.

No OpenAI, no clouds — everything runs on your own machine! 🧠💻

The goal? Not to reinvent AI, but to explore Rust, async programming, Telegram API, and local LLMs. Think of it as a “developer's companion bot”. 😄

🧩 What It Can Do

✅ Replies to any message in Telegram

✅ Works with LocalAI (or OpenAI if you want)

✅ Runs via Docker + Docker Compose

✅ Written in Rust with Actix Web

✅ Has a REST API (/chat) — hook up any UI

✅ Includes tests and has a clean project structure

⚙️ How It Works

Overview

  1. User sends a message to the Telegram bot
  2. Telegram calls our webhook (/telegram/webhook)
  3. Rust app sends the prompt to LocalAI
  4. Gets a reply and sends it back to the user

Tech Stack

🦀 Rust — strict but powerful

🌐 Actix Web — high-perf async framework

📦 Docker & Compose — clean and reproducible

🧠 LocalAI — local alternative to OpenAI, supports GGUF/LLaMa

☁️ Optional: OpenAI support via .env

🚀 Quickstart

Clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/di-zed/tg-ai-companion
cd tg-ai-companion
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Download a model (e.g., Mistral 7B) and configure:

cd models/
wget https://huggingface.co/TheBloke/Mistral-7B-Instruct-v0.2-GGUF/resolve/main/mistral-7b-instruct-v0.2.Q4_K_M.gguf
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Create mistral.yaml:

name: mistral
backend: llama
parameters:
  model: mistral-7b-instruct-v0.2.Q4_K_M.gguf
  temperature: 0.7
  top_p: 0.9
  top_k: 40
  n_ctx: 4096
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Or configure OpenAI in .env:

OPEN_AI_URL=http://localai:8080
OPEN_AI_MODEL=mistral
OPEN_AI_API_KEY=your_openai_key
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Start the app (don't forget to edit .env):

cp .env.sample .env
cp volumes/root/.bash_history.sample volumes/root/.bash_history

docker-compose up --build
docker-compose exec rust bash
cargo run
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Now your bot runs locally, and LocalAI listens on localhost:8080.

🤖 Create Your Telegram Bot

  1. Open Telegram and talk to @BotFather
  2. Run /newbot, set a name and a unique username (something_bot)
  3. You'll get a token like: 
123456789:AAH6kDkKvkkkT-PWTwMg6cYtHEb3vY_tS1k
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Paste it into .env:

TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=your_token_here
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🌍 Expose Webhook via ngrok

Make your local server reachable:

ngrok http 80
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Then set webhook:

curl -X POST "https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_TOKEN>/setWebhook" \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     -d '{"url": "https://your-subdomain.ngrok-free.app/telegram/webhook"}'
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🔐 API Mode (No Telegram)

You can also call it like a standard LLM API:

POST /chat

Header: Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN

{
  "prompt": "Hi, who are you?"
}
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LocalAI (or OpenAI) responds.

🧠 Why I Built This

Main goals:

  • Learn Rust hands-on
  • Explore local LLMs without API keys
  • Build something fun and useful
  • Play with Telegram bots 😎

This can be a base for future AI bots with memory, content generation, assistants, and more.

📅 What’s Next?

  • Memory + conversation context
  • Web interface
  • Multi-model support

💬 Final Thoughts

If you're just starting with Rust or want to try local LLMs — this might be a perfect playground.

The code is clean, the stack is modern, and setup is smooth.

I kept this post light — for deep dives, check the full README:

🔗 GitHub: tg-ai-companion

🔗 Useful Links

🧠 LocalAI — LLM backend

🦀 Rust Book — start here

☁️ ngrok — webhook tunneling

Thanks for reading! 🙌

If the bot responds cheerfully — that’s on me.

If it’s silent — blame Telegram or ngrok 😄

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